


comfort (and food)

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Romance, Unresolved Sexual Tension, anti Inhuman xenophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 14:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8448958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Daisy is out of SHIELD for good, but that doesn't mean Coulson is out of her life. Kind of the opposite.(Written before 4x06 aired)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Persiflage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/gifts).



**i.**

He makes a grimace.

“That bad, uh?”

“No, it’s not that.”

He wipes the sweat off his forehead and now it’s smeared with Daisy’s blood. Better than the other way around, she thinks. He probably shouldn’t be here. An agent of SHIELD helping a wounded Inhuman, no, a wounded criminal. She should have probably rejected his offer to help her get to a safehouse and patch her up, but it’s been three months since she last saw Coulson and though their goodbye hadn’t been definitive, and the lines of communication are still open (they even talked a couple of times, tips about each other’s missions), Daisy was selfish and wanted to stay a little longer with him.

But maybe it was a good idea, because she is not sure she could have dealt with her injury on her own.

“What is it?” she asks, watching his hesitation.

“I have to take out the bullet,” he says.

“You know how to do it?” Daisy asks.

“Yeah, but…”

He gets up from his position kneeling in front of her and goes to the little kitchen of the flat. It’s mostly empty but then Coulson seems to find what he is looking for in the freezer.

He hands it to Daisy. A bottle of (pretty good) vodka.

“Here, have some of this.”

“Uh, thanks.”

She takes a couple of sips before Coulson gets to work on her, carefully but, it hurts like hell. Afterwards Daisy passes out from pain and exhaustion for a bit and wakes up on the couch, with an old blanket draped over her. She half expects Coulson to have left, and she half-wishes he had. If they found out he helped her, maybe even saved her life, the infamous Quake’s life, saved by a SHIELD agent… But he is there, just waiting for Daisy to wake up.

“Why don’t I go get some dinner? There’s a decent looking takeout place on the corner.”

Daisy shakes her head, wincing when Coulson’s eyes seem to lose all light at the rejection.

“You should just go,” she tells him. “You must be in enough trouble with the Director as it is.”

“I told you I don’t mind.”

“But I do.”

Coulson nods. “I know.” But he goes on: “Please, let me go get some food for you. I promised I’ll bring it to you and leave you alone.”

It doesn’t actually happen like that in the end. He doesn’t leave after getting her the food - he buys enough Chinese takeout for two, and he stays and eats dinner with her.

 

**ii.**

“This is Agent Coulson from SHIELD,” someone introduces them at a party. They both react quickly, and Coulson helps her maintain her cover. She is on a mission, she wonders if he is too, or this is just the Director punishing Coulson by having him do some gruelling diplomatic task.

It’s her alias arises more curiosity in him.

“Lola?”

She turns her head, she’s sure Coulson is look at her neck, exposed by the cut of her red dress, the hair made up.

“A sentimental choice,” she admits.

Coulson looks at the dress, the color, she has the impression he is checking her out. Maybe just a bit.

“It suits you.”

They disappear among the guests. Daisy can do what’s she’s come to do and also steal shrimp cocktails with Coulson. Cloning cell phones only requires like a third of her attention anyway. She thinks they might be flirting a bit, but it’s quite innocent. Coulson keeps stuffing his face and making her smile, maybe trying to, but that only makes it better.

 

**iii.**

She sees Coulson when she turns the corner, sitting on one of those uncomfortable green plastic chairs, clearly waiting for her.

“He’s okay, he’s okay,” he tells her first, as Daisy’s fingers wrap instinctively around his forearm when she reaches him. “Just a concussion.” 

That will have to do, because she can’t visit her own father in his hospital room because she is supposed to be a stranger. She is relief by Coulson detailing the injuries, some scratches, nothing really bad, but she is frustrated because she can’t care for the only family she has left in the world.

“How did this happen?” she asks.

Coulson looks pained at the question.

“The Watchdogs found some trail in one of the files they hacked recently,” he replies. “Don’t worry, they don’t know who he is, they just saw the address and thought it was some kind of SHIELD safehouse.”

“I was too late, I couldn’t do anything for him,” Daisy says. She touches Coulson’s chest. “But you did. How?”

“We still keep an eye on him,” just in case.

The possibility hadn’t ocurred to her, and of course she’s an idiot.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she tells him.

“He’s still SHIELD’s… my responsibility.”

Daisy knows it’s a burden Coulson shouldn’t have to shoulder, it’s her family, but she is grateful for it. It’s weird to be out of SHIELD yet unable to cut Coulson off from her life - and maybe that’s a good thing, judging by tonight. The way he was waiting outside Cal’s room, like he was doing this for his own family, it’s an image Daisy is not likely to forget soon.

He takes her to the cafeteria and completes the hospital food dinner with sweet stuff he takes from the vending machine. For her, like a humble offering, almost childish, to comfort her. She only takes a bite here and there, but the gesture itself makes her feel a bit better. As does the fact that Coulson keeps holding her hand all the time they spend sitting in the cafeteria, squeezing her fingers from time to time. 

“You look tired,” he says.

“I’ve been busy.”

“The new housing laws?” he asks. Daisy nods. “It’s a terrible policy.”

She knows SHIELD is against it, the Director even went on record criticizing the new laws defending homeowners right not to rent or sell property to Inhumans if they chose so. Daisy wonders how much Coulson had to do with the Director’s call on that.

“I’m sorry you can’t go see Cal, but he’s going to be all right.”

“It’s Mister Winslow,” Daisy corrects him. She grits her teeth a bit. “And he’s better off not knowing me.”

“That’s not true,” Coulson argues and she can’t look at his eyes. Because she knows what she’ll find there. “I can’t imagine anyone not being all the better for having known you.”

That’s such a stupid thing to say, she thinks, a bit cruelly. Ask Trip, Lincoln, Andrew, my mom, Daisy thinks. Ask yourself.

“Please, Coulson,” she says. “ _Don’t._ ”

He stops talking, like she asks. But he doesn’t let go of her hand.

 

**iv.**

She’s finished setting up her own safehouse, a place where Inhumans can hide if they want to. The first guests are due in a couple of days and Coulson has spent the whole afternoon cooking meals that can easily be frozen, making chicken stock, which Daisy didn’t know you could make yourself and not buy it from the store. The hours have gone by and now he is making them some light dinner while Daisy packs her things.

Her multiple passports are spread across the table, on top of her bag. Coulson looks at them, amused.

“You still go by Lola?”

It’s been almost a year since that party, when she was undercover and he wasn’t and they ate shrimp cocktail and they almost danced. 

“Sometimes.”

She watches him go back to cooking, his back to her, the sleeves rolled up. He’s making the sauce and suddenly the whole room smells of tomato, oregano, something else she can’t identify. She shakes her head when she sees the care with which he is making the simple meal, like the care he’s put in making food for strangers all afternoon.

Daisy walks up to him, resting her hands on his hips and pressing her mouth to the back of his neck for a moment. Coulson tenses up, but not too much, and her gesture doesn’t seem to interrupt his task. He just gives her a curious look over his shoulder.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“A new thing I’m trying,” Daisy replies, casually, playfully, but truth be told she has been thinking about this, thinking about Coulson in this way, for some time. Especially after seeing the way he cared for her father in the hospital.

“You’re trying… kissing me while I cook?” he asks, careful.

“Yes. You like it?”

Coulson nods. “I do.”

 

**v.**

“You know what I’ve discovered?” she comments, feeling increasingly full and happy and in a teasing, carefree mood.

Coulson is distracted changing the bandages on her left arm and, alternatively, dropping light kisses on the injured spot, and above it, tickling the skin of her elbow, while Daisy is busy balancing a disgustingly tasty grilled cheese sandwich with her good hand, and trying not to leave too many crusts on the bed of the safehouse.

He lifts his head, hearing her question a moment too late. “What have you discovered?”

“I can cut my recovery by half after an injury if all I do is eat and f-”

She looks away, feeling every end of her very naked body warm up with the idea of saying the word. It’s stupid, to be embarrassed of a word, after all they’ve done in the last couple of months together (mainly together, there was this one time she called him and they tried to do the phone sex thing and it went pretty badly).

“Well, that’s only to be expected,” he comments, sitting up, finishing with the bandages and giving her arm one last healing kiss. “It’s also very good for your skin.”

Daisy lifts her injured hand a bit, feels Coulson’s hair with the tip of her fingers.

“What are we doing here?”

Coulson looks at her - she likes that stare that she can only describe as _adoring_ , even though it’s a bit smug to say so herself.

“What are we doing? You mean eating and fucking?”

She rolls her eyes at his smoothness. Coulson smirks, dropping his mouth to her neck.

“Apart from cutting your recovery time by half?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

He kisses her collarbone. “That’s your choice,” he says, knowing how much those words mean to her. Being the one in control, it’s still something vital for her. “but for now I think this…” Coulson lowers himself between her legs, so he can kiss her breasts and stomach. “For now this is enough, isn’t it?”

She gets to have great sex and great food and she gets to feel loved every minute they spend together and yes, she has the habit of wanting everything to be defined and locked down quickly when she is in a relationship, but for once it doesn’t feel bad to take it slow. It doesn’t make her feel anxious or insecure like it used to. She knows Coulson and of course he’s eager to get into the sappy, formal stuff, with romantic dinners and gifts (though being seen in public is a problem, until all these anti-Inhumans laws go away). And in the meantime she has Coulson, kissing the inside of her thigh like this.

“Yes,” she agrees. “This is enough.”


End file.
